Every Other Time
by Mandacakes
Summary: Damon has broken Elena's trust before. But, this time it was different. Could he win her trust back? Her affection? And with a new stranger in town, would he have the time? It's game on.
1. Chapter 1

Damon felt the burn of the scotch as it slid down his throat. Eligible bachelor? Check. Dangerous mystique? Check. Crushed by Katherine and her real-life doppleganger? Oooo that's the one that hurt the most. The thought that someone as powerful as Damon Salvatore could be brought down by a female. Well, it was just a blow to a man's ego, not to mention his nether regions. He swirled the amber liquid in the glass and then threw it at the fireplace.

He laughed out loud, the guttural sound of it echoing off the rafters of the Salvatore boarding house. He was a vampire, dammit. Not someone who could be pushed around by any female who so chose to. But, Elena...she was different. He thought that Katherine had loved him, back when he was naïve. But a small part of him knew she never did. Elena was something else entirely. She wouldn't admit she felt something for him, that part of her ached to be with him. But he could sense it. It was in the set of her jaw when he called her out on some ridiculous folklore about vampires. It was in the depth of her eyes as he had helped her through Stefan's "fell-off-the-pedastal" phase. Part of her, perhaps deep down or perhaps not, wanted him. Not Stefan. Damon.

He sank down into an armchair and put his hands to his head. He wouldn't give up on her. He still cared about Elena, part of him longing to be with her. But he wouldn't show his true feelings again. Not at the risk of being torn apart. This was what being a vampire was supposed to save him from. The pain.

* * *

Elena Gilbert stood at the doorway to her brother Jeremy's room and watched his chest rise and fall in his slumber. She had almost lost him, she thought. He could have been gone had it not been for the ring of Grayson Gilbert, her adopted father. All of this, all of the pain and fear she was feeling right now, had a root, and it even had a name. Damon Salvatore.

She walked to her bed and slowly sank onto the edge of it. She used to care. Damon wasn't a good guy. He wasn't a saint. But he had some good left in him. That's what she had thought before tonight. Now she knew he was nothing but a psychopath, what she had thought of him at the very beginning. He had lost all of her trust and faith in him. With a single snap, it was all gone.

"Elena.." She heard a familiar voice behind her and turned to see Stefan standing by her bedroom window, his figure a shadow amongst the billowing curtains. She ran to him and threw her arms around his neck.

"Stefan..I hate him. He almost took the last piece of my family that I have left. I...I despise him." She managed to choke out the sentence before it got lost in the sobs that now spilled from her mouth.

"I won't let him hurt you again, Elena." Stefan pressed her head to his chest and ran his hand soothingly down her back. He wouldn't let anything harm Elena or Jeremy again. Especially if that thing was a he. And that he...was Damon.


	2. Chapter 2

Elena grabbed her backpack off the foot of her bed and headed for her bedroom door. Reaching the door, she sighed as she remembered her vervain locket on her dresser. She had taken it off to take a shower. She spun around to go to her dresser and smacked into a solid chest covered in black fabric.

"Damon! You are the last person I want to see right now. What are you doing here?" She didn't even want to speak to him. However, with Damon it was either speak or be verbally tortured.

"So you're not even excited to see me a little bit? Not one little teeny tiny bit?" One side of his mouth tilted up in the brother's trademark grin.

"Oh yes..see what makes me happier then anything else in the world is seeing the man who has tried to kill me in the past, tried to kill my friends and..oh yes..succeeded in snapping the neck of my little brother last night. I love psychotic killers. Very high on my friends list." She moved to her dresser and grabbed the locket, positioning it around her neck and attempting to securely clasp it.

"Touche, Ms. Gilbert." Damon watched as she attempted to fix her locket. "Would you like some help with that? I promise I won't try to destroy it. Though the thought has crossed my mind."

She glanced at him and looked into his piercing blue eyes. "What makes you think I want your help at all right now? What you did was unforgivable, Damon. Jeremy is the only person I have left in my life. And you almost took that away."

"Elena..." He was finally at a lost for words. He knew he had done wrong. He just needed to convince her he was sorry. "Jeremy...was a wrong place, wrong time kind of thing. I'm a vampire. We do stupid things. And Katherine had really pissed me off. And I just felt all this anger. And he was there. And he wanted to be a vampire. So yeah..I snapped his neck. But I'm sorry." Everything exploded out of him in a sudden rush, as if the saddened look in her brown eyes had flipped his humanity switch.

She saw something in him then, something of the Damon she knew before. She felt her heart soften a tiny bit. "I need to go to school..so could you maybe just fasten the locket so I'm not late?" She looked in the mirror over her dresser and saw a look of relief on his face.

He took the ends of the locket in his hands and clasped it slowly, letting his fingers just graze the back of her neck. Her skin was soft, but unlike Katherine, he knew she had a soft heart as well. He let his hands trail down her back, between her shoulder blades and then he slowly turned her around.

Elena looked up into his eyes and saw a flicker of some emotion before the Damon shields activated again.

" You should probably get going, Teen Queen. You don't want to keep your fans waiting." He smirked as he stepped back, allowing for her passage through to her bedroom door.

She walked a few steps and then turned around to look at him. She didn't know what she was feeling in her heart but she knew that she had never felt it for Damon before. Shaking it off, she stepped out her bedroom door and headed down the stairs.

Damon moved back and slowly sat on Elena's bed. He thought that Elena would stay angry with him, even after he apologized. But the look in her eyes, after he had secured her locket, was something he hadn't seen before. It was almost as if she had wanted him to kiss her. And, god had he wanted to. The feel of her skin still burned through him, igniting flames all along his body. She had been soft and smooth. He only wondered what she was like uncovered and bared. Shaking his head, he stood up. He didn't have time for this. He needed to find out why Katherine was in Mystic Falls and what it would take for her to leave.


End file.
